


it's a golden thing she's got

by slidetacklefc



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Best Friends, F/F, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:37:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22221118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slidetacklefc/pseuds/slidetacklefc
Summary: The sun is setting over the soccer pitch, and Lindsey is the most beautiful thing Emily has ever seen.
Relationships: Lindsey Horan/Emily Sonnett
Comments: 4
Kudos: 74





	it's a golden thing she's got

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this photo](https://www.instagram.com/p/B7J6skdjznn/). Thank you @servir for talking this through with me! You're the reason this got written at all.

Emily zips up the suitcase and takes a seat on her bed. 

She looks around the room, taking it in. There’s a trio of plants in the corner by the window, ones that can do without water for long stretches of time. There’s a handful of Adidas sneakers scattered around the path from the bed to the closet: the pink ones she wore home from yesterday’s match, the (formerly) white ones she really needs to wash already, the yellow ones the company sent her that she thinks might be just a tiny bit too ugly to wear out in public. The dresser top isn’t messy, necessarily, but there’s a few water cups scattered about that she should probably take to the kitchen already.

She could clean her room before she leaves for a week, heading to the East Coast for a pair of national team games, or she could text Lindsey and see what she’s doing.

She chooses to text Lindsey.

: : :

Fifteen minutes later, she’s in sneakers, shorts, and a navy hoodie, knocking on Lindsey’s door. Every time she comes to Lindsey’s door, she has to do three knocks, a pause while she counts to four, and then another two knocks. It’s something Lindsey insisted they develop around the same time they came up with the handshake.

“If we’re gonna have a handshake, we should have a special knock, too,” Lindsey had said back then, opening the door to Emily one morning. “I gotta know who’s at the door.”

“Who comes to see you besides me?” Emily had asked, pushing past Lindsey slightly with her shoulder to get in past the doorway.

“I don’t know. Tobin? Menges? The mailman? What does it matter?”

“You hang out with our mailman?” Emily asked, grabbing a baby carrot from a nearby bag and dipping it into some hummus that was out on the kitchen counter. “Thanks for the invite. I guess you like him better or something.””

Lindsey groaned. “Have I developed a secret handshake with the mailman?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything about your relationship with him.”

“The only person I have a secret handshake with is you, Sonny.”

Emily looked up at her, feeling the satisfying crunch of the carrot around her teeth as Lindsey smiled at her. It was so bright that she felt obligated to look back down at the counter, tracing the marble pattern with her eyes. Then she looked back up at Lindsey, who was still smiling. “Yeah, alright, let’s do it.”

That’s how Emily finds herself counting to four and then knocking again.

The door opens the minute she’s done knocking. “Hey,” Lindsey says. She’s wearing the same hoodie Emily is. Granted, it’s a national-team issued hoodie, so it’s not that weird. It’s just that it looks unfairly good on Lindsey. It only looks fine on Emily.

She thinks about making a joke about how they’re matching, or maybe punching Lindsey in the shoulder to cope.

Emily settles for wrinkling her nose instead. “Were you like, waiting for me?”

Lindsey steps forward and reaches to shut the door behind her, which causes Emily to take two steps back. She watches as Lindsey locks up, her arm flexing with the twisting motion. “You count to four so slowly! I’m always at the door by the time you’ve started knocking again.”

This time Emily does punch her in the shoulder. Just a little, so light Lindsey probably barely feels it. But Lindsey makes a show of nearly falling over and ends up gripping Emily’s wrist to steady herself all the same.

: : :

Lindsey tosses the ball across the fence to Emily, who catches it with two hands in the center of her chest.

“You could be a basketball player, with a throw like that,” Emily says, grinning at Lindsey, who’s a little busy getting herself over the chain link fence to respond. “Need help?”

“I’m taller than you, I think I can manage,” Lindsey grunts, trying to swing her leg up and over. She’s kind of caught on either side of the fence, and if she’s not careful she’s going to fall. If Lindsey falls, their team is fucked; they have enough injuries already.

“Your legs are longer, which means it can be harder for you to get the right angle.”

“I can get the right angles just fine,” Lindsey grumbles, and Emily just watches her as she does manage to hoist her other leg up and over. She watches as Lindsey’s arm shakes with the motion of keeping herself up, and then before she knows it Lindsey is on the ground and walking toward her.

She’s still holding the ball exactly as she was when Lindsey threw it.

“Earth to Sonnett,” Lindsey says, waving a hand in front of her face. “You there?”

“Yeah, sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, didn’t you see my goal in the match against Ireland? That was a good goal.”

“It was,” Emily agrees. “It was a very good goal.”

“I think I’m gonna score another,” Lindsey says, and just as Emily is parsing through the implications of that, Lindsey grabs the ball and tosses it down the field, running after it.

Emily has no choice but to follow her, chasing her down the pitch. It’s a high school pitch that’s somewhat poorly maintained, and if Mark knew they were practicing on it he’d probably blow a gasket. But it’s a five minute drive from their apartment complex, and Lindsey had discovered it one time on a walk. She’d burst into Emily’s apartment talking about how she found this nearby pitch, and talked to the coach, and he said that the field was closed once the high schoolers finished practice in the evening.

“Let me guess,” Emily had said, looking away from the tv screen, where she’d paused Rainbow Road. “You want to break into the high school and play on their soccer pitch at nighttime. Which is illegal.”

Linsey at least had the decency to look guilty. “Come on! I used to do it all the time in high school.”

“I think Colorado has different laws than Oregon,” Emily said, restarting her video game. She could feel Lindsey pouting in the corner. “What would we need it for anyway? We’re already professional athletes. We train all day. You want a place to train at night too?”

But Lindsey had the kind of face Emily had a hard time saying not to, and by now it’s tradition for them to climb the fence and kick a ball around when they’re feeling like they need a distraction. Emily keeps a ball in her trunk for this very purpose.

It’s just after seven o’clock, not quite dark yet, but the sun is starting to set in the sky. Emily knows from checking her weather app – a necessity in all seasons of Portland weather — this morning that sunset won’t come until just before eight pm. Even after it gets dark, the lights will come on, illuminating the pitch as they do each night. They won’t have to leave. They have time.

It’s what she’s been wanting more and more of with Lindsey, these days: time. Ever since they got back from France last month, it feels like they’re closer than ever and yet busier than they’ve ever been. There’s been travel to New York and travel to Los Angeles (twice) and travel all across the country games. Lindsey’s been beside her for all of it, barring a few days after the ESPYs when Emily went home and didn’t quite know what to do with herself. Objectively, she’s pretty sure she’s been spending more time with Lindsey than she ever has before. She just can’t figure out why it feels like it’s not enough.

Well, she knows why. She’s just not sure how much longer she can get away with pretending everything feels the same. Eventually they’re going to have to have a conversation about it.

But for now she’s on a shitty soccer pitch with her best friend in the world, crowding her backwards so she can’t get the ball, trying to keep a hold of it. She bumps her with the hip and gets a foot on the ball, kicking it down the field. It’s a sloppy kick, but she hears Lindsey laugh behind her as she chases after it, and that makes it worth it.

Playing with Lindsey is _ always _ worth it, whether it’s in front of thousands at Providence Park or a pick-up game with their friends. But this might be her favorite way to play with Lindsey, just the two of them. She gets it now. Has for a while actually, why Lindsey wanted to do this way back when they discovered the field. It’s never been about the extra training. It’s just about them hanging out, doing the thing they love most in the world, having fun like they’re little kids again. And for Emily, doing it with the person she loves most in the world.

She thinks it might be the same for Lindsey.

The sun is setting properly now, bathing Lindsey in the most beautiful glow. Emily looks up and catches sight of the way she looks as she dribbles the ball down the field, and stops to watch. Lindsey kicks it on the goal, a near-perfect kick that goes wide at the last moment, and then seems to notice that Emily’s no longer behind her.

“What?” Lindsey calls.

Emily grins. “Nothing. Nice work.”

“It wasn’t a goal,” Lindsey grumbles.

“No, but the next one will be.” Emily runs toward the goal to chase the ball, but Lindsey reaches out to stop her. She runs past her anyway; she doesn’t trust Lindsey not to beat her to the ball if she stops. Lindsey’s a competitive shit when she wants to be, but so is Emily.

“You always have faith in me,” Lindsey calls. “Why?”

The question hits Emily deep, and she turns around to look at Lindsey, hands on her hips and her legs planted wide. In this light, she’s the most beautiful thing Emily has ever seen.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m me,” Lindsey says quietly, and Emily abandons her run for the ball to head back toward Lindsey. Being there for her now feels more important than winning a made up competition between them.

“The you that you are is awesome, Linds. Don’t talk about her like that, she’s my best friend.”

When she thinks about Lindsey, she thinks about admiring her skills before they were ever really friends. Lindsey Horan was _ so good _, and everyone knew it. She thinks about being on the field together at the World Cup, winning a championship with the Thorns, all the little moments they’ve spent together in airports and trains and buses and cars. Lindsey’s always there for her: being her bus buddy, helping her ease the sting of the eight minutes at the World Cup not feeling like enough, using her phone to film the silly little dances that Emily only ever does to see Lindsey laugh. Watching the World Cup final with her on the sidelines, Emily secretly relieved that Lindsey didn’t get subbed in so they could watch the whole thing together.

She wouldn’t want to share those moments with anyone else.

“You’re awesome too, Son. You know that?”

Something catches in Emily’s chest with the words, and she freezes, ten feet away. Lindsey’s hands are still on her hips, her white nails bright in the dark. She looks infuriatingly good. For a moment, Lindsey looks like she wants to say more, but then the floodlights over the field kick on and Lindsey seems to shake out of it and runs after the ball.

It takes Emily only a few seconds to catch up with her, and then she’s pulling on Lindsey’s shirt to slow her down. Lindsey grips her wrist in response and pushes back against her, and Emily laughs. Lindsey laughs too, loud and clear as a bell, and it causes something to flip in Emily’s stomach. She loves this, and she loves Lindsey, and she wants to do this every day of her life.

: : :

Emily parks the car and walks Lindsey to her door. She normally waits in the car to make sure Lindsey gets in okay, but this time she’s not ready to say goodbye.

She’s first to the door and does their special knock, solely because she knows it’ll make Lindsey laugh.

She’s not disappointed.

Out loud, she counts to four, even slower than normal. She can feel Lindsey behind her, crowding behind her, holding in another laugh. 

Lindsey taps her on the shoulder, and Emily spins around. Lindsey is so, so close: big and broad and _ right there_. 

Emily looks up at her and wants to kiss her so bad. It’s all she can think about. “Looks like no one’s home.”

“Sonny,” Lindsey says, her voice soft. She seems hesitant, and every part of Emily’s body is buzzing with anticipation. Something is about to happen, she can just tell, and she wants to commit every moment of it to memory.

“Yeah, Linds?” Her voice sounds steadier than she feels.

Lindsey grins and reaches out to tuck a strand of Emily’s hair behind her ear, her face serious. Emily can barely breathe. The world has fallen away, reduced to just the two of them in a bubble on Lindsey’s tiny front porch.

“Will you go out with me on Sunday?”

All the air wooshes out of Emily’s body. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Great. It’s a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter at @slidetacklefc. It's private but my CC is always open!


End file.
